The promulgation of a wide variety of information appliances and devices has enabled users to experience increased and diverse functionality in their everyday lives. However, these devices typically do not interact in a seamless manner. Rather, each device typically is designed only to interact with components of the device itself as well as with other devices specifically designed to interact with the device. Thus, users are left with a large number of disjointed systems that are difficult to operate in a seamless system. For example, a user may utilize devices such as televisions, music players, computers, personal digital assistants, and the like in the course of a typical day. Each of these devices may have a different user interface which is incompatible with the other devices. Therefore, the user must access each device separately in order to control its functions.
Additionally, the configuration of a device itself may limit the ability of the device to interact with other devices. For example, an information appliance may be configured in a “thin” manner to enable use in mobile applications. The appliance may have limited processing power and storage to prolong battery life and decrease size, have a limited network connection bandwidth, and the like. Thus, the appliance may not be suitable for intensive functions such as processing, storage, and transfer of data. The limited functionality of the information appliance may decrease the efficiency and ability of the appliance to communicate with another device. Previous user interfaces utilized to communicate between the information appliance and another device did not address the functionality of the device, thereby making communication between the appliance and the device through the user interface inefficient.